Trout Season Comes To An End & Onwards To Steelhead

Hello all. I know I haven't sent out an email and blog in a while, so here is my year in review. Trout season was spectacular this year and one for the books! Northern California is truly a fly fisherman's paradise and there is so much it has to offer, whether you are into spring creek style fly fishing trying to fool educated trout on crystal clear slow-moving water--like we have on the Fall River and Hat creek, or busting out the wading staff and doing walk and wade fishing on one of our local tailwaters (freestone in spirit)--McCloud, Upper Sac, and Pit River, or fishing out of a drift boat going down the big Sacramento River chasing monster rainbows, or really challenging yourself and drifting down the Klamath and Trinity River searching for the elusive Steelhead!

Trout season will come to an end on the McCloud, Fall River, and Hat Creek on November 15th. All the other rivers are open year around.

What to look forward to for Trout fishing:

Springtime is incredible up here and has so much to offer:

Starting in March the Lower Sacramento (Drift Boat) starts to get really good and lots of big rainbows are caught during this time. March through May are prime months to be on this river and there are lots of bug hatches from caddis to mayflies and there is also an egg bite that the trout are keying in on this time of year eating the sucker spawn eggs.

The Upper Sac & McCloud rivers have so much to offer in May and June. The huge Golden and Salmonfly stonefly hatch happens during these months and the trout are actively looking for big stonefly nymphs and big dry flies.

Winter Steelhead Fishing:

If you want to chase some steelhead, I am taking bookings for the Klamath River all winter long! The Klamath is one of the most impressive drainages on the West Coast, starting in the vast Klamath Basin in southeastern Oregon and carving its way across Northern California's rugged Siskiyou Mountains before emptying into the Pacific Ocean. These Immature steelhead spend only one year in the ocean before returning to their natal river by the thousands, and average 14-18 inches. In addition to the great populations of these smaller steelhead, the Klamath has good annual runs of adult steelhead from 4-8 pounds. A typical day of Klamath River steelhead fishing often includes hooking a handful of feisty trout-sized half-pounders combined with one or two (or sometimes more) adult steelhead. It is one of the best rivers anywhere to introduce someone to steelhead fly fishing because they'll have a better than good chance of hooking some fish, and more likely than not they'll have chances of hooking good numbers of steelhead on any given day.

Thank you everyone for an incredible year! I hope Everyone will enjoy their winter and hope to see some new faces next year out here in NorCal! I will be Steelhead fishing mostly on the Klamath River if you want to give it a shot, give me a call!

Here are some of the Top Pics from this year!! Enjoy!